World Changing has an interesting article about a legislative change in California that allows car-sharing of personal vehicles [3]. The concept is that if you own a car that you don’t use most of the time (as is usually the case) then you can contract with a car-share company to share it to others when you don’t need it. This saves the car share company from the capital expense of owning cars and thus allows them to place cars in remote locations that wouldn’t otherwise be financially viable (IE the street in front of random people who sign up). The person who owns the car may get about $2 per hour for the time when it’s rented. The car owner gets to specify when the car may be available.

Mieke Meijer in the Netherlands has invented a new product known as “newspaper wood” [11], it involves gluing paper together to create a form of chip-board that keeps the layers of paper distinct to give a result like wood grain. The World Changing commentary suggests that this could give a “heirloom quality” to objects made with it, while I’m dubious about that I think that the surface would be pleasing to look at in a kitchen or office environment.

3 comments to Links November 2010

I’m surprised it took you until now to stop reading the NYT. I stopped a while before the 2003 invasion, when it became crystal clear that the Times’ mission was to trick the public into supporting it no matter what deceptions were required. Columnists like Friedman only extend their neocon agenda.